Let them in

Following the lead of Dan Hardie and other right-thinking people, I've signed this petition, calling for Iraqi employees of UK armed forces to be given asylum.
Of course, as I believe in free migration for all my support should be obvious. Even those who don't share my prior, however, should sign the petition:
1. Even if you think the occupation of Iraq is unjust, the penalties for Iraqis who collaborate with occupiers should not be torture and death.
2. As moral beings we have responsibilities to protect people from this fate even if it means putting ourselves at risk.
3. In working with these Iraqis, we entered into an implicit covenant with them - an agreement that is morally based...through shared values, common purposes and mutual obligations.
4. Doing the right thing requires more than the sullen and passive following of the Refugee Convention. We must give active social expression to our shared moral impulses to sympathy, fairness...and duty.
(Italicized phrases are Gordon Brown's own words.)

More: Dan asks me to write to my MP (Glenda) - and to ask others to write to theirs. He suggests some points to raise here.

Comments

[wayne]

As a BNP supporter I am normally against asylum however in this case the Iraqis should be given asylum because they have helped this country out. The least we can do is repay them. Having said that I won't be signing the petition. It is a waste of 30 seconds because the government doesn't pay any notice to these things.

[Hank Marx]

Whaddaya mean "moral beings"? Human beings are the outcome of the evolutionary process. If we don't see any good to us or our offspring by saving these Iraqis from persecution, then of course we shouldn't do it. Unless you are religious, and believe that you will benefit post-existentially from doing so, but I get the impression that you are yet another atheist liberal type.